All for Ekwueme

It was a gathering of political heavyweights and A-list personalities – those who seem to have seen it all.

They came from the six geo-political zones.

The venue was tastefully decorated. Green and white satin were used to design the background of the high table.

Former Head of State General Yakubu Gowon captured the worth of those seated at the Thisday Dome, Abuja last Tuesday, with these words: “On entering this hall, I had to check my invitation card to be sure I had not walked into a sovereign national constitution conference, seeing that men and women of all political parties and groupings, people and languages and religious affiliations and economic classes are fully represented.”

Such was the scene at the international colloquium to mark the 80th birthday of former Vice President Dr Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme.

Call it another show of fashion and culture. Six different caps dominated the venue – the red Igbo cap, Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha’s self-styled green cap, former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Chairman Solomon Lar’s long cap, the Okadigbo type, the Southsouth bowler hat, and the Shekarau red cap

Indeed, it was a breathtaking outing. The celebrator could not have asked for more.

Guests shone in their various elegant attires.

The ‘birthday boy’ was decked in a fitting dark blue suit, a blue shirt, red tie and a pair of shoes.

He ‘bounced’ to the high table like a teenager.

Said Gowon: “It is safe to say that one of the secrets of his longevity is his penchant for acquiring “university degrees” to keep expanding the landscape of his mind. Or how else does one explain his chain of degrees in architecture, urban planning, sociology, history, philosophy and law?”

The event began with the National Anthem after a sizeable number of guests had converged.

ThisDay publisher Nduka Obaigbena compered the event.

Obaigbena nearly caused a stir when he tried to do the impossible: unmask the notorious leader of the “Kaduna Mafia”. He did that while calling on the former Minister of finance, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, to make his contribution. Ciroma pretended he never heard what Nduka said; he just went straight to his contribution.

Another drama ensued when former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senator Ahmadu Ali stressed the need for the country to amend itself rather than amend the Constitution.

The moderator of the event, Obaigbena, immediately questioned Senator Ali’s statement. “There is no good governance?” Ali responded in the affirmative, arguing that if there was good governance, Boko Haram would not exist and the students of the University of Port Harcourt and College of Health Technology, Mubi would not have been slain.

Aside the comic reliefs that doused the tension-soaked gathering after a debate on the amendment of the Constitution, and good governance, everyone who spoke, said good things about the celebrator.

President Goodluck Jonathan described him as “an outstanding pillar of our nation’s democracy, whose intellectual contribution to our political progress has given meaning to the definition of democracy as it should be practised in Nigeria.”

Dr Ekwueme, according to Jonathan, is a bridge builder, a clean man that could not be stained by all that political office could offer.

“Of course, it is on record that Dr Ekwueme came out of political office poorer than he was before he became the nation’s number two citizen from 1979 to 1983,” he said.

Jonathan said Ekwueme is “a great man, a father of democracy and the leading light of our time.”

The President, who spoke through the Secretary to the Government of the Federatio, (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, urged Nigerians to be patriotic and support the country.

Gowon described Ekwueme as “a brilliant politician and a consensus builder.”

“As an architect, he distinguished himself as the designer of several public and private monuments across the length and breadth of Nigeria, including Federal Government colleges or Unity Schools,” he said.

The former Head of State said Nigeria needed the veritable platform provided by the birthday of an elder statesman such as Ekwueme to chart the way forward.

The Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola described Ekwueme’s brand of politics as the “hallmark of a great statesman.”

Fashola said the celebration must be used as a platform for national rebirth and a return to the highest values of brotherhood, restraint and patriotism.

According to him, the occasion must be for a return to restraint, compromise and patriotism before it can serve the true purpose of negotiating the basis of a truer and better nation.

Conveying the best wishes and felicitation of the government and good people of Lagos State to Dr Ekwueme, Fashola wished him many more fruitful years of statesmanship in good health, peace and prosperity.

He said: “I do not call him a statesman lightly or without thought. Nigeria has known a few good men and, without a doubt, Dr Alex Ekwueme is one of them. It, is, therefore, always easy to acknowledge men like him. The silence of their quiet achievements is so deafening that they are impossible to ignore; thus, making easy, the task of paying them tribute.

“Or how else does a person show commitment and influence change but by personal example? And how else can we describe the example set by Ekwueme as Vice President when after all manner of investigation by the panel set up by the military after they took over government in 1983, it was publicly and now famously declared that Ekwueme had left politics poorer than he was when he entered it and that to ask for more from him was to set a standard which even saints would be unable to meet.

“I can think of no greater honour than that which acknowledges a man’s high sense of integrity. In a government that has continued to be defined by the depths of profligacy to which some of its members sank, it is, indeed, instructive that one good man stood out. A statesman indeed,” Fashola said.